Sky Lights

Heads up: Here comes space junk from 5 billion years ago

By Bob Berman
Nov 1, 2001 6:00 AMNov 12, 2019 4:11 AM

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Can a stone no larger than an apple seed make people gasp in amazement? Sure, when it punches through the air 70 times faster than a bullet. At such a speed, intense friction heats both the rock and the surrounding air molecules to incandescence, producing a brilliant streak. Play that again every second, and you've got a meteor storm.

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